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Comparative and Noncomparative Justice: Some Guidelines for Constitutional Adjudication

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Comparative and Noncomparative Justice: Some Guidelines for Constitutional Adjudication William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal Volume 14 (2005-2006) Issue 1 Article 7 October 2005 Comparative and Noncomparative Justice: Some Guidelines for Constitutional Adjudication Raleigh Hannah Levine Russell Pannier Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the Fourteenth Amendment Commons Repository Citation Raleigh Hannah Levine and Russell Pannier, Comparative and Noncomparative Justice: Some Guidelines for Constitutional Adjudication, 14 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 141 (2005), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol14/iss1/7 Copyright c 2005 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj COMPARATIVE AND NONCOMPARATIVE JUSTICE: SOME GUIDELINES FOR CONSTITUTIONAL ADJUDICATION Raleigh Hannah Levine* Russell Pannier" TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................. 142 I. PRINCIPLES OF COMPARATIVE AND NONCOMPARATIVE JUSTICE ......... 146 A. The Basic Distinction Between Comparative and Noncomparative Justice Argum ents ........................................ 146 B. The Principle of Comparative Justice and Its Normative Precepts ...147 C. The Principle of Noncomparative Justice and Its Normative Precept .150 D. Contexts in Which Both Comparative and Noncomparative Justice Arguments Are Appropriate .......................... 151 E. A Closer Look at the Distinction Between Comparative and Noncomparative Justice: Underinclusive and Overinclusive B urdens ................................................ 153 F. Are Both Comparative and Noncomparative Principles of Justice and Their Corresponding Arguments Really Necessary? .......... 159 H1. GUIDELINES FOR ADJUDICATING COMPARATIVE AND NONCOMPARATIVE JUSTICE ARGUMENTS IN CONSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS ................ 163 A. Courts Should Not Make a Comparative Justice Argument While Characterizing It as a Noncomparative Justice Argument and Should Not Make a Noncomparative Justice Argument While Characterizing It as a Comparative Justice Argument ............. 164 B. Courts Should Not Resolve Constitutional Issues With Comparative Justice Arguments When They Really Believe That the Heart of the Matter Is a Violation of Noncomparative Justice ................ 168 C. Courts Should Not Respond to Claims That Governmental Action Is Noncomparatively Unjust with Arguments That the Action Is Comparatively Just ....................................... 171 * Associate Professor of Law, William Mitchell College of Law; J.D. with Distinction, Order of the Coif, Stanford Law School. ** Professor of Law, William Mitchell College of Law; M.A., Harvard University; J.D., University of Minnesota. The authors are grateful for the helpful comments of their colleagues who attended an October 2004 colloquium on a draft of this article, with special thanks to Dean Allen Easley, Wayne Logan, and Peter Oh. WILLIAM & MARY BILL OF RIGHTS JOURNAL [Vo1.14:141 D. Courts Should Not Construe Constitutional Norms as Giving Rise Only to Comparative Justice Claims When the Desired Outcome Could Be Achieved Using a Noncomparative Justice Analysis ..... 174 E. When Constitutional Norms Apparently Conflict, Courts Can Resolve the Conflict Without Construing Both as Giving Rise to Comparative Justice Claims Alone ........................... 179 F. Courts Should Not Make a Comparative Justice Argument in the Name of a Constitutional Norm Apparently Expressed in Noncomparative Justice Language, Or a Noncomparative Justice Argument in the Name of a Constitutional Norm Apparently Expressed in Comparative Justice Language, Without Articulating a Compelling Reason to Override the Semantic Boundaries of the Text's Language ........................... 185 G. If a Court Determines that Governmental Action Is Noncomparatively Unjust, It Need Not Decide Whether the Action Is Comparatively Unjust, But if the Court Is Not Convinced, It Should Decide Whether the Action Is Comparatively Unjust ..................................... 187 CONCLUSION .................................................. 191 INTRODUCTION In this article, we propose to shed new light on the appropriate resolution of a wide variety of constitutional claims by examining and evaluating them using a framework built with the Principles of Comparative and Noncomparative Justice and their logical derivatives. The Principle of Comparative Justice mandates that relevantly-similar cases be treated similarly and that relevantly-dissimilar cases be treated differently; the Principle ofNoncomparative Justice decrees that each person be treated precisely as she deserves or merits without regard to the way in which anyone else is treated.1 These principles are most familiar in the contexts of Equal Protection and Substantive Due Process claims, respectively.2 We think it illumi- nating, however, to examine other constitutional provisions to determine whether We define these principles more fully in Part I, infra. See also, e.g., JOEL FEINBERG, SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY 98 (1973) [hereinafter FEINBERG] (describing the two principles). But cf. Phillip Montague, Comparative andNon-ComparativeJustice, 30 PHIL. Q. 131, 132-37 (1980) (critiquing Feinberg's account of comparative and noncomparative justice); Joshua Hoffman, A New Theory of Comparativeand NoncomparativeJustice, 70 PHIL. STUD. 165 (1993) (same). 2 See Kenneth W. Simons, Equality as a Comparative Right, 65 B.U. L. REV. 387, 472-78 (1985) (noting that, generally, rational basis Equal Protection claims are comparative justice claims, while rational basis Substantive Due Process claims are often, but not always, noncomparative justice claims). 2005] COMPARATIVE AND NONCOMPARATIVE JUSTICE they, too, can be described as giving rise to comparative arguments (those that essentially claim that the treatment of one is unfair compared to the treatment of another) and/or noncomparative justice arguments (those that essentially claim that one has an intrinsic right to particular treatment, regardless of how others are treated).3 Our examination points to a mismatch between the arguments that the United States Supreme Court should use to analyze claims arising under the constitutional provisions at stake and the arguments that it does use. We believe, for a variety of reasons that we explain in depth in this article, that it is critical that all courts correctly identify the comparative and noncomparative arguments that litigants can and do make, and that the courts then use the proper corresponding analysis to evaluate those arguments. This article is novel in its theoretical and practical treatment of the logical relationships between the Principles of Comparative and Noncomparative Justice and their consequences in a range of constitutional contexts. In detailing these consequences, we have formulated a set of practical and flexible maxims that courts, lawyers, and scholars can use in making and evaluating constitutional arguments, so that they do not continue to make the kinds of mistakes that we identify here. In Part I, we describe the Principles of Comparative and Noncomparative Justice and their corresponding arguments. We then elaborate the distinction between the two types of arguments by examining a number of contexts in which both are available. We sharpen the distinction by focusing on the relationship between comparative justice and underinclusive-burden arguments, on the one hand, and the relationship between noncomparative justice and overinclusive-burden arguments, on the other. Underinclusive-burden arguments essentially claim that not all of the people who cause the harm that a law seeks to prevent are subject to that law. Overinclusive-burden arguments essentially claim that not all of the people who are subject to a law cause the harm that the law seeks to prevent. As we explain in Part I.E, generally, the Supreme Court and lower courts accurately characterize under- inclusive-burden arguments as comparative justice arguments. However, while those courts generally characterize overinclusive-burden arguments as noncomparative justice arguments, sometimes that characterization is inaccurate. While the courts tend to treat overinclusive-burden arguments as noncomparative justice arguments, the two categories are not co-extensive; as we establish, some overinclusive-burden arguments are actually comparative justice arguments. ' As other scholars have recognized, many of the provisions in the United States Constitution can be characterized as protecting comparative justice rights, noncomparative justice rights, or both. Cf., e.g., id. at 447, 468-69 (characterizing the Free Speech Clause, Free Exercise Clause, and the Search and Seizure Clause, inter alia, as sources of noncomparative rights, and the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, the Free Speech Clause, the Establishment Clause, the Commerce Clause, and the Privileges and Immunities Clause, inter alia, as sources of comparative rights). WILLIAM & MARY BILL OF RIGHTS JOURNAL [Vo1.14:141 Having set out the parameters that courts should use to determine whether an argument is genuinely a comparative or noncomparative justice argument, we describe the relationship between the principles that such arguments invoke. We first identify the logical relationship between the Principles of Comparative and Noncomparative Justice and, derivatively, the logical relationship between argu- ments that invoke each. We determine that the Principle of Noncomparative Justice entails the
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